The Piano Man
by Sora G. Silverwind
Summary: While wandering around in the middle of the night, Lloyd discovers another side to Zelos.


**The Piano Man(Whore)**  
**by Sora G. Silverwind **

**Summary: While wandering around in the middle of the night, Lloyd discovers another side to Zelos. **

**Rating: PG for possible slash undertones (but only if you want them to be there).**

**Author's notes: My first piece of ToS fiction; takes place whenever Lloyd and his pals crash at Zelos' pad in Meltokio. Plotless and pointless, though I do rather like it. It's not meant to be romantic, but I had to resist the fangirl within me as I was writing this thing. Um...LLOYD LIKES PIE.**

**Disclaimer: Tales of Symphonia owns itself.**

**Special thanks to: Um...laptops?**

ToS-ToS-ToS

Lloyd lay on his back in his bed, staring blankly up at the decorated ceiling. Geez, just how rich was Zelos and his family, anyway, to think about decorating the freakin' ceiling? At least counting the colored glass pieces that made up the intricate mosaic provided him with something to do as he tried to get back into Dreamland. The awe and wonder of seeing Meltokio's finery still bubbled freshly within him—not even the richest of Sylvarant had dwellings and possessions like the middle-class citizens of the Imperial City. It was truly unbelievable.

He turned onto his side and rested his head on his arm. _But if we regenerate Sylvarant, all of this is going to be gone_, he thought miserably. _It'll all be gone, and the towns and the land will be as dead and pale as Sylvarant. It'll be like...this time never existed..._ He groaned into his pillow. _I wonder what Sylvarant was like before the previous regeneration, whenever the hell that was?_

Lloyd suddenly threw off his covers and sat up. "Bah," he muttered. "I can't sleep." He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stared at the carpet for a minute before realizing that it wasn't a very productive thing to do. It also didn't help his insomnia any. "I wonder if there's anything to eat," he mused. A corner of his mouth quirked up. "I don't think they'll notice if there's a few snacks missing from the kitchen. I'll just take stuff from the back of the pantry!" With a new objective to keep him occupied, Lloyd stuck his feet into a lent pair of house slippers and set off for the kitchen.

Unfortunately, Lloyd had absolutely no idea where the kitchen was. Mistake. The mansion was big—biiiiiiig—and Lloyd wondered why it hadn't occurred to him before to realize that navigating this behemoth of a dwelling was going to be even more of a pain in the shadows of night. He stared stupidly at a marble water fountain sitting in the middle of a hallways crossroads. "Dammit," he cursed. "At this rate I'm going to starve to death. Shouldn't there be a map for a place this huge?"

Lloyd nevertheless trekked onward towards his goal. It was ridiculously late, so there wasn't anyone up and about that he could ask for directions. And he didn't dare knock on the doors and wake someone up. Not only would it be downright rude, but if Sheena or Raine answered the door...well, Lloyd would need a new epidermis come the dawn.

_Sneaking around to raid someone's food pantry isn't exactly polite, either_, a little voice in his head pointed out.

_Ahh...shove it,_ Lloyd thought.

It was then that his ears caught wind of a soft tune gliding in from somewhere behind him. It was beautifully mysterious, like a willow tree hiding an apparition within its branches.

_Piano_, Lloyd thought. _Someone's playing that piano that was in the room we first came in._ He scrunched his brow. _But at this time of night?_ A sharp chill stabbed his spine. _Oh, crap! Didn't Zelos say that his house was haunted by the ghosts of men who wanted to get back at his grandfather for stealing their wives? What if it's one of them trying to lure me out so they can possess my body? Then I might end up killing Zelos, not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but then everyone will hate me in this world too!_

Three moments of deep thought.

_...well, if they've been hanging around long enough, I bet they can tell me where the kitchen is._

So Lloyd toddled off in the general direction of the music. He found himself back in the parlor of the mansion, and to his utter surprise, he saw not a ghost at the piano but... "Zelos?"

"Hmm?" Zelos looked up. He was wearing a burgundy silk robe and his hair was in a braid down his back. He blinked twice. "Lloyd? What are you doing up?"

"Ah, um...I was..." Lloyd stumbled over his words. "Well, I was about to ask you the same question!"

Zelos snorted. "What's it look like? I'm playing the piano!"

"I...didn't know you could play that thing."

"Pfft!" Zelos spread his arms out in a proud gesture. "I'm the great Zelos Wilder! I can do anything!"

"Except keep your mouth shut," Lloyd muttered.

"What was that, bud?"

"Nothing..." Lloyd sat down on a nearby sofa, already forgetting his original purpose in wandering the halls. "Er...how long have you been playing?"

"Since an hour ago, maybe."

"...no, I mean, how long have you been 'playing'?"

"Oh, that! Mmm...for as long as I can remember." Zelos flipped through a songbook in front of him—it looked like all the music was handwritten. "Music is a part of education here."

"Really?" Lloyd asked, intrigued. "I never learned anything like that from Raine."

"Your school was probably too poor."

"What!" Lloyd jumped up in anger. "How dare you—"

"Whoah, there, bronco, I'm just telling the truth," Zelos said, hands up in defense. "Even the smallest of these babies run for big money. The same goes for a lot of other instruments that we play here. Though you could probably make your own instruments, like a flute or something, right?"

"But not a piano," Lloyd said forlornly.

Zelos grinned. "Cheer up, bud! Music is music no matter what's making it. Why don't you ask your hot teach about the possibility? I bet it'd be a nice surprise for her to find out you're actually interested in learning something!"

Lloyd did a double-take, unsure of how to take that last comment.

Zelos smiled lazily for half a minute before his gaze slid over to study the gold base of a piano leg.

Likewise, Lloyd's eyes shifted their focus to a cloisonné antique vase he'd almost broken earlier that day.

For a few minutes, only the crickets conversed.

Then...

"I guess I should be headed to bed now," Zelos finally said, getting up. "It's late, and Martel forbid that I won't be able to get the circles out from under my eyes with the usual tea bags..."

"W-wait!" Lloyd exclaimed. "Can't you play some more?"

Zelos arched an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"'Cause it was, you know...sort of cool." Lloyd clasped his hands in his lap. "I really wanna listen. Just one song!" A pause. "U-unless you're really tired and need to sleep or whatever..."

"Er...nonsense!" Zelos plopped back down onto the piano bench. "The great Zelos never refuses an audience with his admirers! Even if said admirer _is_ male..."

If Lloyd hadn't wanted to listen to Zelos, he would have chucked the antique vase right at the Chosen's head, reparations be damned.

"So, what'll it be?" Zelos asked. "A minuet, polonaise, prelude, sonata...?"

Lloyd didn't even know what those were. "Uh...you're playing. You decide."

Zelos shrugged. "Your call." There was the gentle rustle of well-worn manuscript papers as Zelos leafed through the spiral notebook. "Ah! Here we are. 'Liquid Indigo,' in the key of C-minor. It's one of my favorites—after all, I wrote it!"

Lloyd was too startled by this revelation to care much about Zelos' narcissistic display. _He writes music, too?_

And damn good music it was. The notes cleansed the room like crisp ocean waves. They ran up and down the stairs of octaves, giggling coyly all the way but never tripping. The melody was like a creamy sweet melting on the tongue. Lloyd was mesmerized.

But even more remarkable to the young hero than the music was Zelos' transformation as he played. There was no hint of the playboy that had been Lloyd's first and current impression of Zelos. In his stead was a young man who simply had a passion for music and made it into something sinfully magical—the song was his soul. Despite the fact that Zelos never failed to flirt with a female, Lloyd had always suspected that there was something behind that face, something reluctantly put away like a favorite piece of clothing that didn't really match with the rest of one's wardrobe. It wasn't that Zelos seemed uncomfortable with his role as the Flirt Extraordinaire—far from it—but rather that there was something he loved even more than pretty faces. _Why doesn't he just become a traveling musician?_ Lloyd wondered. _He could still meet a lot of girls that way, if he wanted to. Unless that's too much of an outdated idea here?_

Lloyd watched Zelos' long fingers dance deftly over the shiny black-and-white keys. The redhead was completely absorbed in his song, and not just because he wrote it. Lloyd's heart clenched a bit as he listened. It was painfully blissful.

Zelos lay his hands on the keys to let the final few notes die away. "Well, how's that for a performance, eh?" he said.

"That was really cool!" Lloyd said, beaming. "I wish I could do that."

"It'll take a while before you're at my level, bud."

"..."

Zelos sighed amusedly. "You're really gung ho about this now, huh?"

"I guess." Lloyd scratched the back of his head. "It must be nice to just...you know...let loose and do that."

A pause.

"I could teach you a little..."

Lloyd's head snapped up at this. "What?"

"Hey, if you're going to learn, you may as well learn from the master!" Zelos smirked—his trademark expression. "I think we can hammer in a few lessons before the sun comes up! Though if I break out later on, I'm going to blame it on you."

"_What?_ But you're the one who volunteered to teach me!"

Zelos swooned dramatically, placing the back of his hand to his forehead. "Oh, my generosity will be the death of me! And I won't even look good when I die." He inched over on the piano bench and patted the space next to him. "Well, hurry up! The faster we do this, the less beauty sleep I have to lose!"

Lloyd rolled his eyes.

But he got up.

And the lessons began.

ToS-ToS-ToS

**Review if you will, flame if you must. Just remember that rodents will rule the world three thousand years into the future and acorns shall be their gods.**

**-Sora G. Silverwind, the Queen of Oddities**  
**_Has earned the title "ToS Addict"_**


End file.
